TRIVIA NOTE: Born Lawrence Tureaud, on 21 May
1952 in Chicago, Mr. T. is the second of 12
children who grew up in a housing projects in
Chicago.

Standing 5' 10' tall, he attended Dunbar
Vocational High School, played college football,
studied martial arts, and was three times city
wrestling champion! He won a scholarship to
Prairie View A&M University in Texas, but was
thrown out after a year. Lawrence changed his
name in 1970 to Laurence Tero, and then later to
Mr. T so that people would HAVE to address him
as "Mr." During 1985-86

Mr. T entered the world
of pro wrestling battling with the likes of Hulk
Hogan or Roddy Piperin 1995. Mr. T was also
twice named America's Toughest Bouncer and a
body guard to Muhammad Ali. His business card
reads, "Next to God, there is no better
protector than I."

In an interview with Playboy
(September 1983) he said "I am the best
bodyguard, because I'll take a bullet, I'll take
a stab wound, I'll take a hit upside the head;
I'm like a Kamikaze pilot; The President got
shot because his men relaxed."

In 1995, Mr. T was
diagnosed with cancer at age 43 (T-Cell Lymphoma
of the skin) but after intensive therapy, he has
apparently beat the disease in 2001.

Besides his trademark catchphrase "I pity the
fool," Mr T. has three distinct characteristics.
The first one is his hair.

He adopted his hair
style from an African Mandinka warrior that he
once saw in a copy of National Geographic. He
felt that adopting the style was a powerful
statement about African origins.

His second feature is his jewelry. He wear lots
of gold. In his biography "Mr. T", he explained,
"the gold chains are a symbol that reminds me of
my great African ancestors, who were brought
over here as slaves with iron chains on their
ankles, their wrists, their necks and sometimes
around their waists. I turned my chains into
gold...the fact I wear gold instead of iron
chains is because I am still a slave, only my
price tag is higher now. I am still bought and
sold by the powers that be in society, white
people, but this time they pay me on demand,
millions and millions of dollars for my
services." Mr. T bought his first chain in 1976.

The third thing that makes Mr. T unique are his
shoes. Again in his 1984 biography her revealed,
"My beat-up, run-over, taped-up raggedy and old
combat boots used to belong to my father before
they were handed down to me. I wear my father's
boots with pride because they help me not to
forget where I come from and they tell me that I
have to finished his journey. Now the reason I
wear mismatched socks is because there are a lot
of poor children who don't have a pair of
matched socks, and people laugh at them. So I
wear mismatched socks so people can laugh at me,
instead of poor kids. Plus I am making a fashion
statement: just wear what you got and be
thankful."

Mr. T's film acting credit range from the movie
Rocky III (1982) as boxer Clubber Lang;
D.C Cab
(1983) as Samson, a Washington D.C. taxi driver;
the TV movie The Toughest Man in the World
(1984) as Bruise Brubaker; Not Another Teen
Movie as the wise janitor (2001); and Apocalypse
IV: Judgment (2001) as J.T Quincy.

His TV
credits included the TV special "The World's
Toughest Bouncer" on GAMES PEOPLE PLAY (1982)
MISTER T (1983) as a cartoon character who ran a
gymnasium and helped teenagers; THE BATTLE OF
THE NETWORK STARS XIV (1983) as an NBC Team
Contestant; "WWF SUPERSTARS OF WRESTLING (1984)
as Himself (1985-1986; 1988); "T. AND T." (1988)
as T.S. Turner an ex-con turned private eye; E!
RANK: 25 TOUGHEST STARS (2001) as Host; and an
archive footage appearance B.A. Baracus in THE
100 GREATEST TV CHARACTERS (2001) and on NBC's
75th ANNIVERSARY (2002). He also starred in the
reality series I PITY THE FOOL (2006) produced
by the TV Land cable channel.

Occasionally Mr. T appears as Conan O'Brien's
special guest and partner in various comedy
sketches on the hit NBC late-night show LATE
NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN. In 2002 Mr. T appeared
as "Inspecta Collect" in a 1-800 Collect
commercials. In the end, the one thing that
reveals the real Mr. T is his statement: "Any
man who don't love his momma can't be no friend
of mine."

SOME B.A. BYTES

"Shut up Fool!"

"If that fool's flyin', we dyin'"

"Hey man. I ain't gettin' on no airplane, and
that's it!"

"Nobody puts their hands on my mother and lives
to tell about it!"

"Enough Jibba-Jabba, Let's roll!!!"

"If these guys wanna get rough, we can get
rough."

"I'd like to take this dude and teach him to
breathe underwater."

"There was a new private eye in town. His name
is B.A. Baracus, and he's lookin' down at the
Maltese fool."